Seems appropriate to write about soil (aka dirt) today. Such a complex yet under-appreciated world beneath our feet.
One of my favorite stories is of Rapamiacin. A team looking for antibiotics in soil samples found a novel one when then tested material from Easter Island, aka Rapa Nui. Hence the name Rapamiacin. It was found to successfully treat some common fungal infections in AIDS patients in the 1980s. Later, it was discovered that mice treated with Rapamiacin lived longer. Diving into that detail turned up a protein called mTOR, mechanistic Target of Rapamiacin. mTOR is the mysterious factor that controls some large part of aging in mammals. Yes, a bit of dirt from a remote Pacific island may hold the secret to longer human life.
This story speaks to me about conserving biodiversity. Living systems are complex chemical factories and you never know what value will turn up in the most trivial organism. You don't have to be an aspect-dominant tree or a keystone animal species to have value. But you'll have no value if you're extinct.
So this year I'll focus on telling the best stories I can to BioPark visitors, trying to keep Democratic political enthusiasm up, and making a spiritual pilgrimage to England. Kew Gardens is high on my list. Maybe I'll get to see their herbarium and some of Linnaeus' sheets?
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